Best
by clair beaubien
Summary: Wee-chester story. 2nd Grader Sam is supposed to write a list of "What Mom's Do Best". Outsider POV. Up now: Ch2 - Sam goes back to visit Miss Smith when he's all grown up.
1. Chapter 1

"Miss Smith? Sam's not writing anything on his paper!"

Second graders. Y'gotta love 'em.

"And is that any of your business, Ciara?" I asked our resident busybody.

"You _said_ - ."

"_I said_ that everyone needs to work on their _own_ paper. Are _you_ working on _your own_ paper?"

"_Yes, Miss Smith_." She grumbled.

I made another circuit of the classroom. Sam Winchester sat to the far left of the room, in the second to last row. He hadn't looked up when Ciara made her announcement about him. He sat hunched over his desk and his paper and his pencil. He'd started school with all the other kids, six school days before, he was quiet and studious but had yet to make any real friends.

And his paper, which was supposed to be about '_What my Mom does best'_, was completely blank. There'd been a discussion in class about mothers and what they do and who does it best, so I thought this little exercise might be a good thing. Now I wondered if it hadn't all been a set-up at Sam's expense.

"Sam, why don't you come up to my desk, and we'll see what's going on?" I offered in my best, cheerfulest, '_no, Ciara, he's __**not**__ in trouble'_ voice. I wanted to find out what was going on with him away from prying ears and eyes back here at 'gossip central'.

"…'kay…" He slumped out of his chair and slumped up past the other kids toward my desk. This was only our fourth full day of class, and while Sam had never been the ball of energy that a lot of my other kids were, he'd never been this _slumpy._

I followed him up and pulled the extra chair around so that he could sit next to me.

"So, let me see what you have." I said when he held his paper close to his chest.

"I didn't write anything." He said quietly, down to his knees, from behind shaggy bangs.

"Why not?" I asked with interest and not accusation. He was never the first kid to finish a paper in my class, but that was always because he was so busy _writing, writing, writing_ that he didn't _want_ to finish. He'd never not _started._

"I don't know."

"You don't know why you didn't write anything?"

He shook his head and I started running through options in my head. Maybe he was tired, or having a bad day, maybe that's why he didn't write anything, and why he said he didn't know why he didn't write anything. Maybe it wasn't really the niggling idea of 'set-up' that was growing bigger at the back of my mind.

But it was.

"_I don't know what Moms do best."_

Even though one part of me hoped that was because he had too many things to choose from, the rest of me knew what world I lived in.

"Do you live with your Mom?"

"_She died."_ He whispered. "_A long time ago."_

"I'm sorry, Sam. I didn't know."

He shrugged one shoulder but didn't look up at me. I looked more closely at him. Every single day he came to school in clean clothes and good sneakers. His face was always washed, his hair was always combed, his lunch was always packed with good food. There was never a bruise or illogically explained mark on him. Someone loved him and took care of him. A _mother's_ care.

"Do you live with your Dad?"

He nodded.

"_My Dad and my brother." _

"Your brother who comes to get you every day?" I asked. Every day, instead of storming into the hallway and the wide world beyond like the other boys, every single day Sam stood quietly at the classroom door, backpack in hand, until the bigger boy, his brother, came in, '_ready, Sammy?_' and then together they'd walk to the outside door.

He nodded again.

"_Dean." _

"That's right; I remember you told me his name the first day." He didn't answer or move one twitch. "You can write your paper on what your Dad does best, if you want."

He nodded, just nodded, but nothing else.

"What's the best thing your Dad does?" I asked, hoping to get him rolling.

"Lotsa stuff."

"What does he do that you like the best?"

Sam finally looked up at me. I saw some of his usual enthusiasm sparking in his eyes.

"He can lift me up, really really REALLY high."

"Good. You want to write that down?"

He nodded and set his paper where I pointed and wrote '_Dad lifts me high up'_ in chunky print letters.

"What else?" I prompted.

"When I'm cold, he's really really REALLY warm."

"Good, you can write that down, too…what else?" I asked when '_Dad makes me warm'_ had been set to paper.

"When we're in the car, and when the music is on, when we're driving, my Dad knows _all_ the words to _all _the songs that we listen to." He said it like it was the most amazing thing. "Can I write _that_ down?"

"You sure can."

And _'Dad knows every song'_ got added to the list.

"You're doing a good job, Sam. You think you can take this back to your desk now and keep thinking of things that your Dad does best?"

"Uh hunh!" He agreed enthusiastically, grabbed up his paper and shot back to his desk where, for the next fifteen minutes, he wrote and wrote and wrote. He was still writing when I called a halt and told the students to put their papers in their desks and get ready for the end of the day. Desks were cleared, bags were packed, scuffling feet were stilled until that last bell sounded and a herd of clamoring children exploded out of my room into the hallway and freedom.

Every child but one.

"Miss Smith?" Sam slumped back up to my desk.

"Hey, Sam. What's up?"

It took many seconds, but finally he asked,

"What _do_ Moms do best?"

"Your Mom's been gone a long time?" I asked.

"Yeah…"

"Well…" I was torn between feeling like I was bragging, and giving him an honest answer. "My Mom makes the best BLT's, and she would tell me stories every night before I went to bed. She helped me pick out my clothes for school and made my lunch for me every day. She made cookies for me to bring into school whenever I needed them. If I'm ever sad about something, my Mom listens to me and tells me how to not be sad anymore."

Sam's expression turned puzzled.

"Does she put bandages on when you get hurt and make sure when you take a bath that the water isn't too cold and tie your sneakers and make the mean kids stay away from you and always taste the nasty medicine before you have to take it too?"

"Yeah, Moms do all that. My Mom does all that. Does your Dad do all that for you, too?"

He gave me another puzzled expression. I wondered if he was trying to reconcile the differences and similarities between Moms and Dads in his apparently all male-world.

"My Dad does all the _Dad_ stuff." He said. "He works really really REALLY hard and he pays for stuff and drives the car and checks the room first so that bad guys aren't ever get there first…" I smiled at his convoluted sentence, and his logic. My Mom might disagree with what _Dad stuff_ meant, since she was known to do all that stuff too.

"So who does your _Mom stuff_ then?" I had to ask. "Who makes your lunch and ties your shoes and puts bandages on you and helps you take a bath and all that?"

"_Dean_. Dean does all that stuff. He always does that stuff for me." I pictured his brother Dean in my mind. Ten or eleven, a young boy with an adult task on his shoulders. There must've been a less-than-happy look on my face, and Sam must've seen it.

"I didn't know that was _Mom_ stuff. I just thought that was _Dean_ stuff." He looked kind of embarrassed, like maybe he only just realized how out of step he was with the other kids. "I thought _all_ big brothers did that."

I wasn't going to leave him thinking that I thought he was worse off for not having a Mom.

"No, Sam. I think just the _really cool_ big brothers do all that. I think any other big brother must be pretty lame compared to Dean, hunh? I guess he must be the best big brother in the _whole school_."

And he smiled and nodded, and the smile turned to a grin when we heard the customary,

"_Sammy – ready?" _

And we both looked over to see Dean at the door. I saw a ten or eleven year old boy with what had to be a difficult weight on his shoulders. Sam only saw his hero.

"_Dean_? Guess _what_?" Sam happily skipped over to him. "Miss Smith thinks you're the best big brother in the whole whole school!"

"Yeah?" Dean reached a hand out and when Sam took it, Dean flashed a grin my way. "Well _I_ think Miss Smith must be the smartest teacher in the whole school, too. Don't you?"

"Yeah!"

"Yeah!" Dean echoed. "C'mon, let's go home."

" 'Kay…" They walked towards the classroom door, hand in hand. "I think you're the best big brother in school, too, Dean."

Dean flashed me one more departing smile before they left and I realized – the best thing that any _Mom_ can do is not let on how hard being a Mom can be.

"And you're the best little brother in the _whole_ _world_, Sammy."

the end


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: set in the vague future.

* * *

"_Miss Smith?"_

I looked up from my desk to the doorway. I'd been reorganizing my drawer and my classroom. _Again._ Some wisenheimer had started off the school year by rearranging my things for me. Every single day. So I had to reorganize. _Every single day_. If not for that, I would've been out of the school and on my way home already. I didn't recognize the man standing in my doorway, but I knew the look – pleased, inquisitive, hesitant. He had to be a former student.

"It's Mrs. Mogavero now." I told him, not unpleasantly. Teachers can be intimdating, even when the student is a grown man. I didn't want to scare him.

"Oh – right. Yeah. Mrs. Mogavero. I knew you as Miss Smith." I knew it – former student. He came a few steps into the classroom. "Um – you probably don't remember me. I was in your second grade class for about a month, a long time ago…"

I opened up the file cabinet in my brain and rummaged around briefly as he went on.

"…my name is Sam –."

But he didn't need to finish.

"_Sam Winchester?_ My goodness! You've grown!"

"Yeah, that's what I've been told." He said. "Um – can I sit? For a minute?"

"Sure! Of course!" I pulled the extra chair away from the desk so he'd have room for those long legs. I remembered distinctly a small boy with a slight build and a huge smile when I could coax it out of him. Now he was a huge man with a slight smile that needed to be bigger. "I'm glad you caught me here. I usually leave before now, but somebody keeps deciding to rearrange my desk drawer and I have to put it right again before I go home."

"Oh. Huh."

I waited for him to fold himself down into the too-small-chair before I went on. He managed to look not-uncomfortable, and yet so much bigger than he had standing. He didn't start right in with why he was visiting me, so I asked.

"So – what brings you town? Did you move back here after all this time? You're not still traveling with your Dad, are you?"

"Uh – no." His eyes dropped to his knees and I suddenly remembered very _very_ distinctly the same gesture from when he was six or seven. Sadness and regret. "Dad – um – we lost him, a long time ago."

"I'm so sorry. I lost my Mom, too. Last spring. I think it was the hardest thing I've ever been through."

"Last spring?" Sam asked me, looking up with those same shaggy bangs I remembered now so well. He sounded surprised.

"Last spring." I said, then chided him for his surprise, "I'm not _that_ old, you know, that my Mom couldn't still be alive last spring."

He smiled, and laughed, sort of. He looked sad, but then - he usually had. I wanted to get a bigger smile and more of a laugh out of him.

"So what are you doing in town? I'm an egoist, but even I won't believe you came here just to see me."

"Ha. Um, Dean and I, we're here to try and help out a friend. I was hoping I might see you. I never forgot you, you know. You were one of the best teachers I ever had."

"I hope not! I'd hate to think your experience with teachers peaked your first week in second grade!"

He smiled and it was sad and my heart ached for him, the boy I knew and the man I was with. What had gone on in his life?

"So – Dean's in town with you? Is he with you here?"

"Yeah, um, yeah. He's -." He gestured with his head toward the door. "You know. Looking around. He knew I wanted to talk to you."

Tears – actual tears then were in his eyes. Something was seriously, _seriously_ wrong. I reached over and put my hand around his. He was maybe all grown up and a good foot taller than me, but once my student, always my student, and always deserving of the care and concern that came with that.

"Sam – _what is it_?"

"Um – I don't know how – it might be a little hard to…." And that was all I got out of him right then.

"Whatever it is – whatever I can do – tell me. I want to help."

"It's just – just – _do you believe in Heaven_?"

"_Heaven_? Sam – are you sick? Did something happen? Are you all right?"

He seemed surprised by that question.

"No – I'm – no – I – I'm okay. Really. I am."

But he wasn't. I could tell. He might've only been mine for a month all those years ago, but I _knew _something was wrong.

"Dean's all right?" That was the next thing I could imagine that would drive Sam to desperation, if his big brother was in trouble.

"Yeah, Dean's fine."

"And everyone else?"

That question puzzled him so much, it actually pushed him back in his much-too-small chair a little. I think I might as well have asked him how things were going on the Lost Continent of Atlantis for how confused he looked.

"Everyone _else?"_

"Everyone else. You know - _the rest of your family_?" Someone please tell me these boys have more family than just each other.

"_Oh._ Oh." Finally his mouth turned up a little bit in a wry smile. "Yeah. They're all fine too."

"Sooooooo – Heaven." My eyebrows rose up of their own volition as I tried to figure out why Sam was here and asking me about The Great Beyond. "You just found religion and you want to convert me?"

"_Ha._ No." Well, I got a little bit bigger smile out of him. My hand was still around his and he laid his free hand on top of mine. "Miss Smith – _um_ – Mrs. Mogavero - do you remember last April – the last day of school before Spring Break?"

I almost pulled my hand away from his. Student or no, good intentions or serious trouble, I didn't like to talk about it. I didn't _want_ to talk about it.

"That's the day my mother died. It's not a topic I discuss."

He nodded but he stared at our hands and didn't look at me. He had that look on his face. _Sadness and regret. _I wish the hospice nurse had shown as much sadness and regret when she pronounced my mother dead.

"Sam? Does this have something to do with my Mom? Are you a police officer? Because she died of a bad heart. Blocked arteries. I mean – if you want to arrest her primary physician who told her for two years there was nothing wrong with her until her heart was too weak for surgery, please do. Other than that – _what?"_

And then there was a long minute of some clock ticking and Sam apparently memorizing the age spots on the back of my hand. Until there was a voice at the classroom door.

"_Sammy?"_

And there was Dean, as ever and always, I suspected. Exactly as I remembered him. Same expression – concern. Same gaze – straight at Sam and only Sam.

"Not yet, Dean. Just – I just -."

Same reason for being there – making sure _Sammy_ got where he was supposed to be going.

"_Sam – you need to tell her." _There was concern in his voice and I wondered – for Sam or for me?

Maybe both.

"Tell me _what?_"

"_Your mother died five years ago." _Sam said, like he was telling me he'd just run over my dog.

I looked up at Dean, waiting for him - _expecting him_ - to acknowledge Sam's maybe-not-so-sudden mental illness, and to make a lame apology for that rude remark about my Mom, and I would accept it just-barely-graciously and see then that they were escorted off the property, preferably to the closest psychiatric hospital.

But Dean was looking at me like he'd just run over my dog, too. He _didn't_ think Sam was crazy. Maybe they could get the bulk rate at that psych hospital.

"_No." _I answered patiently, as though Sam was still my second grade student and insisting that girls did _too_ have cooties. "Mom died last April."

"_No._" Sam echoed me, only he sounded like his life depended on my believing him. "_She_ didn't die last April."

Well, I might've fallen off a turnip truck a time or two, but it wasn't in the dark and it wasn't last night; the emphasis on '_she'_ meant something. I opened up that file cabinet in my mind again and rummaged around, until I found a file folder that refused to be opened. Until I ripped it open anyway and saw -

_Oh._

"_I_ died last spring."I said.

And everything changed.

Instead of the daylight of mid-afternoon, the classroom was dark and lit only by moonlight through the window. Sam held a dark flashlight. Dean held a lit flashlight, pointing it down at the floor. Suddenly I was cold. Suddenly I was scared.

"_I'm dead."_

"You died right here in this chair." Sam agreed. "Last April, that Friday afternoon before Spring break. The kids were all cleared out, you had a massive stroke and died. Right here in your chair."

"So – my desk drawer…"

Sam shrugged like he was about to explain something necessary but painful.

"The new teacher. Every morning she comes in and rearranges it back. And the bulletin board, and the way she has the kids line up their desks."

"And the 'friend' you're in town to help?"

He shrugged again.

"You really _were_ the best teacher I ever had. You cared, you _understood_, when not many other teachers ever did. I wanted to give you a chance."

_A chance_. We were moving from crazy to weird to creepy now.

"A chance to do _what?_ Are you going to go all 'Ghost Hunters' on me and ask me to leave and send me out to wander the mean streets of Bradford all by my ethereal lonesome?"

"A chance -." Sam looked back at Dean, clearly for help, and Big Brother stepped up to the plate.

"A chance to get to Heaven." Dean supplied. He walked closer to my – _the_ – desk. "_The easy way."_

_Oh._

"Do I want to know the _hard_ way?"

That question bothered Sam, judging from the pained look on his face.

"Miss Smith – I mean, Mrs. Mogavero –."

"Hold on." I interrupted him, because this was just something I had to point out. "Let me just get this straight. _I'm dead_."

"Yes." Dean answered, straightforward and honest.

"And I'm a ghost."

"A _spirit_, to be more accurate. But – yeah."

I looked back to Sam who wasn't looking at Dean or me until I nudged his hand.

"So I'm dead _and_ a spirit and still you're making sure you address me by the right name?"

"Um – well – yeah – I just -." Sam stammered. I'd taken him completely off guard.

I couldn't help it. I cupped my hand against his blushing cheek.

"You are the sweetest boy I ever met, do you know that? And the smartest student I ever had. And _you_ -." I looked up at Dean " - are the best big brother I've ever met."

"Told you she was smart." Dean grinned down at his brother. Sam nodded his agreement, but still looked sad. Could he be that sad over me?

"So – I'm dead, and I want to get to Heaven. What do we do?" I asked. "What do _I_ do?"

"Basically," Dean explained as though he was explaining diagramming a sentence. "At this point, you just need to _want_ to go to Heaven."

"Really." I was less than impressed. "That's it? No white light? No thunder or earthquakes? No party?"

"You'll see the white light when you're on your way." Sam said. Whispered. This was really being hard on him.

"_On my way_." That sounded odd. Not odd that I was dead, I'd retrieved _that_ fact from my mental file-o-fax. But that I was moments or steps away from my everlasting reward. "_On my way to Heaven." _

"Your Mom is waiting for you." Sam told me. His eyes were brimming with tears. Maybe – maybe he wasn't _sad_ for me. Maybe he was _jealous_. In a few minutes, _I'd be seeing my Mom_ _again_.

"And how would you know that?" I asked.

"Because -." Dean stepped in again when Sam obviously couldn't answer. "We know the guy who runs the place." And then he winked at me. _Winked_ at me. The flirt. I wondered if there was a way I could get him to wink at me again.

"I'm sorry." Sam said. Again - suddenly, like he had a handful of things he needed to say, but only a fingerful of courage to say them.

"Sorry for what?"

"You should've had more time."

"No one ever gets enough time." I said. "How did you know? That I was here?"

Even dead, I didn't miss how Dean gripped his hand around Sam's shoulder. Big Brother still being there for Little Brother.

"It's kind of hard to explain." Sam told me.

"Dean says he's got an 'in with the guy who runs Heaven', but telling me how you knew I was dead is '_hard to explain'_? Really?" No way was I buying that. "Wait – _you're_ not dead, are you? This isn't the 'Welcome Wagon to Eternity', is it?"

"_No_ – no. We're alive. Dean and I – we're - we're still okay."

"_Good_. So then?"

Dean stepped up again.

"Investigating supernatural things is kind of what we do. When we heard some weird things were going on at this school and Geek Boy here figured out it might be you - "

"I wanted to help you." Sam finished. "You deserve to be happy. You took care of me all those years ago, when those other kids were trying to be mean to me, talking about Moms when I didn't have one. I wanted to help you."

_All those years ago. __A long time ago. What did he mean?_

"How many years has it been?" I had to ask. I was losing my focus on the whole space-time continuum.

"Since I was in your class? Um…_forty_ _years_."

_And everything changed._

My desk was no longer my desk, it was a massive podium with a computer monitor and keyboard built into it. The chalkboard was gone in favor of a whiteboard. The lovely creaking wooden floor was covered over with tacky carpet squares. The casement windows were glass block. The bookshelves and books were gone.

My classroom was gone.

_I_ was gone.

I only just needed to leave.

"Okay." I said. I stood up and Sam did too. "Okay, I'm ready. Do I click my heels and channel the whole 'Dorothy' vibe, or what?"

"Your Mom's waiting." Sam said again. "You just picture your Mom and _want_ to be with her. That'll be enough."

"Says your 'guy on the inside'? Okay."

I started to picture my Mom, as young as I ever remembered her being, but there was Sam still there, looking as sad as I've ever seen anyone look. So, I was dead - didn't mean I couldn't still care.

"_Thank you."_ I said and reached out to hug him. "_I'll be waiting for the both of you, too_."

Then the light and the warmth and the _rightness_ enveloped me, and as my Mom shone more clearly, and the Winchesters shone less clearly, I could almost imagine Dean reaching out for Sam's hand so he could lead him from the classroom and to home again.

the end.


End file.
